Latest / New Worlder / Episode #90: Pablo Díaz

Transcript

Episode #90: Pablo Díaz · New Worlder

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is the New Worlder podcast, and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Today,
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: we are speaking with Pablo Diaz,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: who is the head chef and owner of the restaurants Mercado 24 and Dora La Tostadora
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: in Guatemala City,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Guatemala.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: His restaurants have never been about tasting menus or getting rankings,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: but serving good food using the best ingredients at fairly reasonable prices.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: He has been one of the driving forces in Guatemala's modern culinary movement,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: helping small farmers and artisan fishermen connect with restaurants in the city in
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: a fair way,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: while also changing the perception of diners surrounding the quality of local ingredients.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: I first met Pablo in 2018
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: in Guate.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was my first time back in the country in many years and it was just a quick
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: stopover for a few days and it really opened my eyes to how much was going on there
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: at kind of every level from street food and markets to fine dining.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: I went with Diego Tellez of the very wonderful restaurant Flor Delis on a very
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: intense whirlwind tour around the city and there was one very unlikely restaurant
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: that stood out.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was called Dora La Tostadora.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was a tostada shop set in an old shoe store.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up writing about it for the New York Times and it was maybe one of my
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: favorite restaurant stories I ever wrote there.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: There were just a couple of sidewalk seats and a sort of thrown together interior.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Inside the former shoe store are just a few wooden tables and a two stool counter
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: that's lined with a dozen or so bottles of different hot sauces I wrote.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: The decor has a haphazard look.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: thrown together feel.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Christmas lights,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: a poster of the ruins of Tikal on the wall,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: a cartoon cutout of Dora the Explorer,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: the tiny restaurant's namesake.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the restaurant began as a pop-up months before I was there,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: while his more market-driven restaurant,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Mercado 24,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: was in the process of moving locations,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: and his staff still needed a job.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely loved tostadas, maybe even more than tacos, and these were some of the best I've
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: have ever had and have gone back again and again and they're still great.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: They have kind of the absolute right combination in proportions of proteins,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: fish,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: beef tongue,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: plus like different herbs,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: oils,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: and spices all on a crispy tortilla.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they've moved to a larger location a few years ago and more recently into an
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: even larger,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: more formal location.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: But the restaurant began with such a simple idea that just makes so much sense, as does Mercado 24.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Pablo's restaurants are creative and cool, but they aren't flashy.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as I said, there's no tasting menus.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's not doing what he does for international appeal.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: He's been doing it for his community, and after 10 years, you can see the impact it has had.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you haven't subscribed to my newsletter,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's free to subscribe, though paid subscribers get access to all the content and archives.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Again, that's newworlder.com.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Also, we now have a New Worlder YouTube channel.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: This full episode will be there.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just go to YouTube.com slash New Worlder.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can see the whole video unedited of the interview with Pablo.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: So please subscribe, like us, and share us.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Every little bit helps.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoy the show.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, where are you right now?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: You're in the restaurant?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Pablo.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Juliana.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good, thanks.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm here in Mercado 24.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just came from the market.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I do every morning.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just...
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just wake up,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: take a little time for myself,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: and try to do some exercise in the morning,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: and then I'm going to the market to choose and to get every ingredient that we're
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: going to use for the day.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do you call the market there, Plaza?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, Mercado.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just Mercado.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: But La Terminal, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's the main market.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like walking distance from... Yeah, yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like four or five blocks away.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: It depends how much, how many ingredients I need to buy.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I use my car or I'm walking to the market.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I prefer to walk, actually.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the restaurant's been open, what, like 10 years now?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Almost 10 years?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Almost 10 years.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: In six months, we're getting 10 years.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought, when I opened Mercado 24, I never thought to list that much time.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: 10 years is a lot.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, like for any restaurant, like shit, like it's almost impossible.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible, yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So when the restaurant started, it had a different location, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were right in front of this new location.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're here for five years now.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we need in that time, we need to move to a new place because the old one was too tiny.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in that time, the
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: we need to have more space to do another kitchen, especially for the kitchen.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was the main reason.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right, it was just a tiny kitchen.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: you couldn't really do much,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: especially when you're breaking down whole fish,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: getting lots of produce direct from the market.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not quite like just being delivered fillets and things like that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, but the, the concept of the restaurant was always just what's available at the market.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So always changing, always changing every day, the menu.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really, we don't really, um, work on, um, on a seasonal ingredients.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: If we go to the market every morning, we get the seasonal ingredients at the end.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: But our concept is to work with these market ingredients.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: we called Mercado 24,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: the name of the restaurant is Mercado 24 because there's 23 markets in Guatemala
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: City and we try to be the
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: 24th one.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is why we call it Mercado 24.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the restaurant, it's an abstract, abstract, abstractation of a market.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: We do a sign-out with a guy who's paint the chicken bus in Guatemala.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: As you see, we have these canastas behind me.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: who are the lamps and everything, it's like a part or it was a part of a market.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like even the ceiling looks like the, I can see it above you.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: It just looks like another like spot in the market, but with a kitchen.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's still the open kitchen, right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's still open kitchen.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: We have a big bar in front of the kitchen and you can sit and see us cooking.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And has, I mean, I guess what's the big challenge of working with markets in Guatemala City?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it is because there's many, many factors.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: For example, we are in the middle of the rainy season right now in Guatemala.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's many problems with roads and everything is happening.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: If there's too much rain, some roads are closed and some ingredients, it's not possible to get the...
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: to getting the ingredients because something's happening in the village or with the people.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it has their difficulties.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: But after all, I love to work with the people in the market because I...
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, after these 10 years, I have some good relations with these people in the terminal.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: you can see,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I try to post every morning one photo from La Terminal from the ingredients of the
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: things I see.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I try to share with everyone this experience.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is quality sometimes an issue?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like I,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure just,
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: it's,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: it's one thing to have the product in a village or in the,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: on the coast from a fisherman,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: but getting it to the city with the,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: with the traffic.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: especially now or any season flooding has have things improved at all,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: or are there's just,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: are those just challenges that are always gonna be around or,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: or what?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: We need to sometimes improve as a story.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing that we bought when we started Mercado Anticuatro was a printer.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we print the menu every morning at a restaurant because the menu depends on
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: what we get every day so yeah for for us it's i mean it's a kind of easy things to
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: thing to do to improve with the ingredients that we get you know and um and yeah
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: yeah
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, over 10 years, you've had to have just encountered every, you know, challenge possible in.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, you have to be very adaptable, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, do you have at this point, like.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: you have like kind of a set menu.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: You like,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: where you're going to make a fish dish,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: but it might not be quite that fish that you're hoping for.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's, you're just going to have to adapt or whatever vegetable or whatever.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just, so I don't know.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have like lots of options and alternatives?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because I guess it has to be,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: it has to be a pain in the ass,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: every day,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: basically writing a new menu and having inconsistent,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: ingredients i mean it's it's a super huge challenge as a team because as you say we
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: need we need to to sometimes we need to improve um on how we do in the menu but um
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: or
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be always like with the eyes open to see what we can do with ingredients
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: and not always it's going in the right way.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the results are not good as we want.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: What about prices?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: If the, if the, you know, if the best product available for the day is, so how do you handle that?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is like a super, super busy, like not, not, it's not easy.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the easy things to do in the sense of like,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: prices and the numbers and we need to do like super huge job with this like we
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: change not every morning but we change a lot the prices because it flipped a lot
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: the
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: you can you can you can get an onion for a quetzal this morning but tomorrow it can
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: change like two quetzales an onion you know so it changed a lot and what do you do
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: when that happens like let's say the onion do you don't get it that day or you if
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: it's if is it super necessary
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can buy it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's not, I can change.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can adapt.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can adapt the menu on what we get.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's a balance between freshness, diversifying the menu, but also, obviously, price.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a balance.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, we work...
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: mostly with the people in the market but we have just two direct suppliers one of
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: them is Samuel which is a fisherman and he's living in a in the Pacific Ocean
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's working with a group of people who are fishermen and he supplied me directly the fish.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: it makes it give me the option to work with a different kind of fish not just sea
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: bass or red snapper other common fish that the people loves to work with and the
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: other one it's a jose juke
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a guy who's living near to the border with Mexico,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: and he supplied me mushrooms in the rainy season.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember going to the terminal with you a few years ago, and we met with one of the fish vendors.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: What was his name?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, but...
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think at the time you were working on like kind of helping him,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: sell other species that kind of were not being sold in the market.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the situation is in Guatemala,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: but I assume there's probably just like two or three species that everyone
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: gravitates to and then everything else just doesn't even come to the market.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like they don't even bother trying to sell it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is that still the case?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are people opening up their eyes to kind of other things or it's still,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: there's so much pressure on just a few species?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: People in Guatemala love to cook.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: As chefs and as customers, people love to eat lots of tuna and basically tuna, sea bass and shrimp.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we try to offer other species because,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: the world needs not to explode just one species or two.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: We need to consume like a
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: another amount of species,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: not just fish,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: but vegetables and everything,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: super,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: super hard to try to propose another thing,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: especially now when you can see through your phone
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: that everyone is cooking and eating tuna and two or three more species.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's a hard thing to do, but
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think Mercado 24 has a strong voice in this sense, you know?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: So our customers looking for us, looking for these other proposals, you know?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a specific reason why you started working primarily with fish and fishermen?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: What motivated you to do that?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I came to
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: When I came back to Guatemala after 10 years living in Mexico and Europe,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: I started my research on the ingredients.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized in that moment that the fish is one of the best ingredients that we have here in Huatli.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to work with fish more than other proteins and vegetables.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love the vegetables in Guatemala.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I work the most with fish and vegetables, especially.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was amazing, amazing produce there.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: yeah when you say one of the best products to work with is like you literally went
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: to taste them see them compare them with what you work with in mexico and europe
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: and you
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been surprised.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've been surprised for the quality of the fish you can get in the market,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: like super nice,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: super nice,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: super high quality.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've been working in Ensenada in north of Mexico, in Baja.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, as you know, for me, there's one of the best seafood and fish
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: quality in the world.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: I recently been in Chile and I saw many, many, many different species that I never saw before.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, in Ensenada,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I learned how to work with fish and seafood in Ensenada.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went to live in Italy and I realized how they feel about their products, like in the sense of
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: love of what they do.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when I, I came back, I, I have these ideas in my mind and I start with the local problems.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is how all the start.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did you always intend to come back?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in that moment,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, in that moment, I decided to come back to Guate just for three months.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when I realized how many ingredients we have here in Guate and the quality of them,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to open Mercado 24.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I never expected to open a restaurant for 10 years.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's too much.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I've been here in this industry, especially in Guate.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think Guatemala is a little bit different from the US,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: or from Colombia or another country because
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: We are like the second generation of chefs doing like a different thing because
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: before us,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: just almost nothing's happening here in Guate.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just the restaurants are French or Italians or yeah.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're doing, I mean, Débora, Sergio, Diego, and many others.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing, like, Guatemalan-based flavors, you know, in our restaurants.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of you now.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, there's a whole scene, and it's not just limited to the city that's in Antigua.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's...
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: other places too and yeah it's a pretty cool place to be right now and especially
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: with you know all these different ingredients that have kind of been overlooked in
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: restaurants you know like they're still being used in you know communities but kind
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: of never really hit a kitchen before and it's you it's like one of these rare
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: places like Peru and in Mexico that has such a
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: depth of well you know like history and agriculture and that so it's i don't know
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: it's a amazing place i think to be um but i want to talk about um you mentioned
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: like you never expected the restaurant to to stay open i'm curious about your
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: thoughts on opening restaurants because like because i
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you thought the same way about Dora, La Tostadora as well.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: You probably didn't expect that to, to kind of like continue on like it did.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like when, when I first met you, like I went, this was 2018, I think.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in, you know, Guate for the first time in years.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I was just there like on a stopover going somewhere else and for like two days.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: I met Diego Tellez from Florida Lease,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: and he took me to the Doña Melo on the market,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: aside of going to Florida Lease and things.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was just kind of like trying everything for a few days.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then we went to Dora,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: which I still think is the best name of a restaurant in the history of Latin America.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember going there, and it wasn't long after you opened, but it was just like,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: an abandoned shoe store or something like that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like that, that was the location.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, it was just like an abandoned shoe store that was hit by a hurricane or something.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And like,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: and left,
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: but then you put a kitchen in there,
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: like a small kitchen,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: just basic assembly things,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: I guess.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like it wasn't, you didn't need much.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And there were just a couple of seats on the sidewalk and it was,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: But the food was fucking absolutely amazing.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: these tostadas,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Guatemalan tostadas,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: which are nothing really like traditional Guatemalan tostadas,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, traditional Guatemalan tostadas are what?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're just like a little bit of sauce and
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: cheese or what so tomato sauce and cheese there's two there's two like a famous or
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: like most traditional ones um one of them is a tomato sauce with a little bit of
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: cheese on it and the other one it's um black beans and a prosciutto and that's it
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: so black beans with what sorry
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: with a little bit of parsley on it.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like chopped parsley on it and cheese.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: So they're still delicious, you know, don't get me wrong, but it's like, it's something very simple.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Something, somebody like in a, on the street can prepare in seconds and they cost almost nothing.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's our, sorry, it's our street food.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: In Guate we have five meals during the day.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, the breakfast and then a little snack in like 10, 11 a.m.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: just before the lunch.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this snack, it used to be a little tostada or tamale or yeah, and that's it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then the lunch and then the snack in the evening and then dinner.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: We used to eat a lot.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's five times a day.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're like hobbits or something,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: like that's like,
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: but,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: but yeah,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: so Dora had this very thrown together feel,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: but like it started,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was just a pop-up right.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And at first,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: like it was when Mercado Ventecuatro was moving locations and you just wanted to
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: give the staff a
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: something to do?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: actually Dora served as a need because when we moved to this new place,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: it's still new for me because the other one,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: the old one,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's here in front of the new one.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we need to earn some money
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And a friend of mine gave me this place.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's the place where you've been there like five years, six years by now.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it starts with a little stove and a little counter and two tables, I think.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Before we opened there...
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: there was three people waiting for tostadas.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then we need to move to another place for some reason inside of art gallery
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: called La R.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And now Dora is getting bigger and we have another Dora in Zone 14,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: which is like
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: A real restaurant.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not a pop-up, but a real one, you know?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: You have like a formal location now and it's like a full menu of things.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: So are there two locations now or just one?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just one.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: We,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: we need to move because they start to build a super huge building right next to the
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: old Dora,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: so we need to move to another place.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: So this is why we opened this new location.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, but going back to, like, the original, did you start doing tostadas just because it was something...
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: you could do with like not a lot of equipment, like you didn't need to set a lot up.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: was that the idea just because it's like,
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: you didn't really need a full kitchen to kind of do this and earn the money.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was just,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: you could do these things in the kind of anywhere it's,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: it's also,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: another aspect of being adaptable and,
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: working with what you have.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: that may be carried over from Mercado 24.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: this makes the tostada a super nice meal because you can eat the plate,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: which is the tostada,
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: and you can put almost everything over it.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: and almost everything is tasting good because the tostada has the crunchiness and
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: the flavor and it has the right size and you can eat by your hand.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a super nice meal.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can eat two or three tostadas and that's enough for a meal.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I love the tostadas, of course.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: you say at the beginning people were more hesitant to try,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: different,
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: more complex or different flavors.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And do you see a difference between how people accept
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: you putting things out of the box in a tostada than you offering different things
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: in Mercado 24,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: like people take it in a different way just because it's more casual or not.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think people expect,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: see different things in our menu and like in Mercado 24 and Dora Tostadora.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: They want something different.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think they come to Mercado Andorra expecting different dishes in the menu, you know?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, after 10 years, I think people expect that.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, asking always, the regular customers always asking me for different things.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: They want to.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they want to try different things.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, Mercado is a place to try like exotics, ingredients, and yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: So who came up with the name for Dora?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Dora, wow.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean...
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because Dora starts as a pop-up, I never expect that it'll be too many years.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I thought in a name like...
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: like uh yeah like a super easy to remember and in that time dora dora the explorer
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: is in the isn't i had a little i don't know how to say this in english a little
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: sobrina nice so yeah and and i remember i saw dora the explorer the explorer in the
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: tv and i thought
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think Dora La Tostadora because it's a tostaduría.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good name for a restaurant.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is what it's named.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: And Dora's Guatemalan, right?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or is she some from...
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized, like, time after the name, I realized that Dora, the explorer, is from Guatemala.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's from Guatemala, actually.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy, that's crazy.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, you can Google it, and she's from Guatemala, actually.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also a weed reference, right?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because she's Doris Toasted, right?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Doris Toasted, yeah.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: You told me that the last time I saw you, I think, which I thought was funny.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like three different reasons to be called that way.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's such a perfect name.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's so many levels.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: It resonates.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Were we at the last time we see you, Nick?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think in the South, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I saw you in Merida most recently.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: In Merida, yeah.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I also saw you in... Like, you did a pop-up with Tropic Kitchen in New York.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, yeah, in Brooklyn.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I also saw you in Guate the last time I was there, which...
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a few years ago.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pablo,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: will you say there is something specific about like a flavor or the,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: or even the way in which the tostadas are fried or the current is process,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: in the case of what the,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: what the Maltecas to start with the Maltecas,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: will you say there is something that distinguishes them?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I will say the only thing we don't do in the restaurant is the tostada and the tortillas.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because in Guate, in every corner, you can buy tortillas.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of molinos, like corn molinos, in almost every corner in the city, in the country.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: So why do a tortilla if we can buy a tortilla right here in this corner?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they're super nice.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Answer your question.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: The difference between, for example, Mexico tortillas or tostada,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: there are more fish.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: The Mexicans are more Chinese.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think this is the difference.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because we nixtamalize the corn, we ground the corn.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the tortillas we made, they're handmade tortillas, not machine made.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, in the sense of the flavors,
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone asks me what you do in Mercado 24 and always the answer is,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: work with local ingredients,
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: but the flavors we get in our menu are the flavors from Guatemala because
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are Guatemalans.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are in Guatemala and we work with the ingredients from Guatemala.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the flavors we can get are the flavors from Guatemala, you know?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: So now what's the store like?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: You have like a bigger menu.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: What else is on it other than tostadas?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the menu is still based on the tostadas.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I did the same tostadas, but in a tortilla, and we call it aguadas, which means soft.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we have eight tostadas, five aguadas, and three main dishes, like big dishes.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because, yeah.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: because Dora is bigger now, so we need to propose another main dishes.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the tostada, the people coming to Dora to eat two or three tostadas as an interest and one main dish.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Changing subjects a little bit, you worked at Noma, Mexico, right?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been working there.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Super nice experience.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Super nice experience.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: So did you close Mercado 24 when you were doing that, or just everybody else took over?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Mercado 24 was still open when I was there.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there for three months, I think.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what was that experience like?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: how did you get involved and like super nice because i grew up with all these
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: ingredients and when i when i was there i realized on how they see the same
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: ingredients
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: that i grow raw with they worked so much different with the same sapote or the same
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: lime or the same fish that i saw from my childhood that's super crazy because how i
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: can see these ingredients in that way and how you can get the flavors,
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: the different flavors from the same ingredients and that's super crazy.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean people from Europe,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: from Copenhagen coming to Mexico and work and they start to work with these amazing
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: ingredients and
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: they did this super nice menu based on the ingredients that I saw from,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: when I was a child,
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Super, super crazy.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give us a couple of examples?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for example, I remember this dish, these little bananas.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: they roast the skin the bananas over the charcoal and they did this oil made of
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: roast banana skin and they just put
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: the bananas in a plate and a little bit of this oil and it tastes super nice and
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: super differently and for me it was like whoa this is super crazy but everything
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: everything everything was i mean and in my childhood i can't i i just go to the to
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: the patio
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: from my father's house and I just took, I don't know, a lime or everything, you know?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they work with these ingredients and yeah,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: they're getting super different flavors from the same ingredients.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Super crazy.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you've worked in,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: all these high-level kitchens,
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: like Noma and Ensenada,
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: where was it?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Manzanillo?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Manzanillo?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Manzanillo, yeah.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and plus like in fine dining places in Europe and…
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: But your restaurants have never been about fine dining, really.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: it's definitely elevated or whatever you want to call it,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: but it's never been about having a tasting menu.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's never been about all these awards and rankings and things like that.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why...
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: have you always wanted it to be more accessible, I guess?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: you definitely have the skill and it's like,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: you see it even in,
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: the Dora La Tostadora,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: you see how,
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: these beautiful tostadas,
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: they could be on the menu of Noma,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Mexico,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's a few things that taste that delicious to me.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you've never wanted to do that.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: You've always...
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: kind of refrained in doing this thing that connects more with every person in Guate
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: rather than just attracting tourists.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: As a human being, we need to breathe and we need to eat to see life, you know?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, I believe
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: that the food needs to be more, we need to have more access to the food.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do like this fine dining and stuff, it goes away from these beliefs.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the food,
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get the access to the food.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think what you're trying to say is,
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: since you opened,
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: it's been about,
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: showing what Guatemalan food can be,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: like another aspect of it.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it just...
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: To do that and to really have an impact, it can't just be for rich people eating a tasting menu.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Not that that can't have an impact either,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: but I think if you really want to transform a food system,
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: you have to look beyond that as well.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is that kind of?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why I do what I do.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: I try to spend my money direct to the people who grows the food or the vendor from the terminal.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I go to the supermarket, my money goes to, I don't know where.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: know yeah some middleman somewhere yeah so i can i i try to to be more like to to
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: give more access to this money you know i i i saw i saw um
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: I saw children growing in the terminal and I saw people go to the university thanks to,
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: thanks to my money,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: but it helps.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure that it helps.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: So over 10 years, I mean, you have to think over 10 years, you know, serving
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: food like that to kind of more volume than the fine dining restaurants,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: you can buy a certain amount of fish and vegetables and not just,
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: five grams of flour or whatever.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: And, and yeah, you can, you can, I'm sure you can see that impact a little bit.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not to say it's, you know, all to you of course, or to your restaurants, but yeah,
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: that has to be gratifying,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: I imagine,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: to see a little girl that was probably sitting in the market all day long going to university.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: just having that kind of pathway to something else and maybe she'll come back and
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: work at that market again and be the one,
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: the voice of,
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: something important.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think...
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs to do their part.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as a chef, I try to do mine, you know, to spend my money with a little bit more consciente, you know?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I try to do my part from my job.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I think everyone needs to be more conscious.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to say this in English.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Conscious, yeah.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, conscious.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Aware, whatever, yeah.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, I was just going to say why.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it important?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: why not just,
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: just start a chain of Dora La Tostadoras and put them in every mall in Guate?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: make a ton of money.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it could be the next, you know, McDonald's.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, because.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: You could be rich, man.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: You could have that big house on the coast and drive a Ferrari and have a helicopter to fly into.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like everybody loves Dora.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like why not?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: Why not do that?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: because I mean,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: maybe if it helps to the society to get a better people and a better future,
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it will be great,
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: but not,
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: I do what I do because I want a better society at the end.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: i mean things are still pretty rough in guate like i know i know we're talking
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: about like nice restaurants and ingredients and everything but still things are
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: pretty messy right like politically uh economically super tough like yeah it's
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: still people like migration and you know and like narcos and all kinds of shit like
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: it's still pretty fucked up yeah hey yeah there's like a like a
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: a thousand people every day who wants to go to us looking for better for better
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: opportunities and if we can do a little change i can do it yeah i i love to to i
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: would love to to do that yeah why not i'm i'm
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm living here in Guatemala and I see every day what's happening here with the
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: people and I cannot be that kind of person that see the wrong things in the society
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: and not to allow to be something different,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, now there's, as I was saying, like, there's a lot of...
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: you guys thinking this way you know this is 10 years later and there's got to be at
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: least you know 30 restaurants or something i don't know maybe more that are kind of
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: making these connections with you know the producers in the markets and is that
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: spreading do you think do you think it's like rubbing off do you see like this
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: impact
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: kind of growing?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is it giving people hope or have you seen like a story of somebody saying,
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: okay,
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: maybe not just,
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: run away to the U S maybe,
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: maybe there's something here.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as, as a leaders, we need to spread the, the, the good things because we,
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: We can do it.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: We can do this here in Guate.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why you can't not do the right thing?
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone, I think everyone, everyone can do it.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I... I...
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I realize and I be there, like it's super hard to do something different here in Huarte.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe in the US it's more easy.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think everywhere it's hard to change the systems that have been built over decades,
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: especially by giant corporations that are just giving us
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: cheaper, but, you know, devastating foods on a, you know, health and environmental level.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know,
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's hard to break out of that and,
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: asking maybe somebody to pay a little bit more for,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: for something that's more responsible.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's, yeah, I think it's hard everywhere.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: Especially in Guate, a place like Guatemala.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, and it takes people to kind of make a little more effort.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like, I mean, you don't have to be going to the market every day.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're choosing to because you see how it can improve lives and it can give you better food as well.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: but I,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in,
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: in,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: in,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can change and I can do a change,
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: going to the market every morning,
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: for 10 years now.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: I, I really believe that.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, after all, I, I still doing it.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still doing that.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I believe this, I believe in a change.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: What time, what time do you wake up?
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: 6, 6.30 in the morning.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not that too early.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I mean, it's not that late either.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're not sleeping in.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: But, yeah, I mean, that has to be exhausting, a 10-year period, but waking up kind of early, you know?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, but, I mean, that's a commitment.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you,
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Pablo,
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: how do you distribute your time every day between these two restaurants,
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dora and Mercado?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also, as part of your routine, you get to interact with producers or vendors every day, right?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you get to...
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: talk or share a bit more than, you know, talking about the product and the price and give me this.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: If in that interaction, something else happens, given that you do it.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: know in this level of yeah i mean in early in the morning i try to give my give a
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: time to myself and and then to go to them to the super important super important
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: doing some yoga meditation or exercise and then going to the market and uh
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: I come back to the Mercado 24 to see what's happening and to doing some prep or yeah,
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: whatever I have to do.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then for lunch service, I'm going to the Dora La Tostadora till 4 or 5 p.m.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then for the dinner service, I'm here in Mercado Anticuatro.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: I finish my day at 10 p.m.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: I take my day off on Sunday.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that's it.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as we were talking, I've been traveling a lot in Latin America this year, like a lot, a lot, a lot.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in Colombia, in Chile, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in everywhere in Latin America.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: In Ecuador, I've been cooking in Muema with Chamorro and Pia.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing what's happening there, in South America especially, and yeah, I realize how much we are...
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: the same in a sense, you know?
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: We speak in the same language,
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: we're suffering the same problems politically and socially and everything is super crazy,
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: super crazy.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really in love with this continent, which is super nice.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: and because i've been cooking in some different and in in lots of different places
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: i try to share the watermelon flavors through the chilis especially and the spices
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: you travel with those you mean spices spices and chilis and of course the tostadas
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: yeah is is that your like go is that your go-to like move like to make tostadas
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: wherever you go like
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: It makes sense.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're fucking awesome.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: When you see me in some airport, you can see me with a box of tostadas.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: What else is going on in Guatemala now?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: Are there any other restaurants that have opened or places you've been that...
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, really excite you?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think the next generation is coming.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: They start to open their own restaurants.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: Three of them are Chi-Chi, which is a super new restaurant.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: It has like a month.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Chi-Chi?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: Chi-Chi.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Chi-Chi?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Chi Chi.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: C-H-I-C-H-I.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's one,
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: that's one of my cat's names,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: but it was also,
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: but it was also this,
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: this terrible Mexican restaurant growing up.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I grew up in Ohio and like, there weren't real Mexican restaurants.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like,
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: these weird like Mexican restaurant,
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: like kind of Tex-Mex places created by white people that were just like really,
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: really bad.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: And there was one in .
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but I have more faith in the one in Guatemala.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what is that one?
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, Chichi is from a guy who was the first chef from Dona La Tostadora.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Chiri, Chiri Galindo.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it looks, actually, to be honest, I've never been there, but it looks super nice.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: yeah yeah yeah i have to be there like in the next week maybe i don't know and the
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: other one is nanik is in antigua from first solis and the other one is um
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: Gambaru,
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: which another guy,
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: was another chef from Dora La Tostadora,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: called Juan Jose Del Valle,
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: is doing a mix between Japanese and Guatemalan flavors.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Super nice.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, the cocktails and bars movement now in Guatemala is growing.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, let's see what's happening in the next month.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it looks nice.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: El Paradon right now.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: El Paradon is super, like, super fashion place.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I went there.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I came back.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, the last time I saw you in Guate, I came back, like, a few months later with my wife and kids.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we went to just because we couldn't find a place to go.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: And there were really cheap tickets to Guatemala.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked everyone, like, you know, what's a beach I should go?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they said El Paradon.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we went there and it was this super cool beach.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: There wasn't really anywhere to eat at the time.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this was, you know, like three years ago, I guess.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was the only issue.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the restaurants were kind of shitty.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like the first part of the week, nothing was open either.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it was an awesome place.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I could see, you know, things opening there and it kind of taking on a new culinary life.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: yeah i mean from uh three years now i think the paredon it's it grows like a lot
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: like a lot there's there's many projects and restaurants and bars and cafes three
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: years three years ago paredon was still like a little village you know so but it
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: grows yeah it grows a lot yeah
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: cool no my like my kids it was it's like their favorite place ever they just like
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: my daughter couldn't even say like guatemala at the time she would call it
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: guacamola yeah guacamola yeah but still it's like they just have like they just
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: love like whenever we say like where do you want to go for vacation not that they
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: really have much of a choice but
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's Guatemala, always.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's their favorite place.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the beaches in El Paradon are super exotic, right?
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because they have these black sand beaches.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, super cool.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was insanely hot when we were there.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, and it was because the rest of the coast has like a really strong undertow.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that was like the one place that's kind of like around the corner or whatever.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: I forget how the map is shaped, but there's not so much undertow.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it was it was pretty nice.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, the kids could swim.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: Waves were pretty hard, but it was, you know, it was still nice.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the waves are pretty hard.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: They are good for surfing.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: Paredon, it's super, super nice place.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: the Paredon,
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: Antigua,
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: and Lake Atitlán,
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: there are like three places that more people want to visit when they visit to Guate.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: How's the Caribbean side?
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, the Caribbean side, it's super nice, super nice.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love there, but it's like 10 hours away from the city?
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: 10 hours drive, so yeah.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the Paragon is like two hours drive.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, two hours, is that it?
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like we were... Maybe we left on the bad traffic or something, but I feel like it was longer.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's it, two hours?
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's not bad.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's...
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: So where is the fish that you buy coming from mainly?
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: Pacific Ocean, yeah.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Mainly because I bought sometimes fish from the Caribbean.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: We referred to the Caribbean as Atlantic.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone say it's from Atlantic, Atlantic, but we don't have,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really have Atlantis.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have the Caribbean Ocean.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's the same, right?
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's all the same, technically.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just water.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just water.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, Julie, are there any other questions that you want to ask?
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, well, first I want to try those two styles one day.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have to.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: And no,
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think the interaction Pablo has with producers and vendors is really interesting
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: and meaningful.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, I'm just, I want to watch that too.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious about that.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great that you believe in this and are doing it with discipline, right?
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because it requires consistency.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think discipline is one thing that everyone needs to have to earn something in life.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the constancy is, yeah.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: Even if
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had a long night for a reason.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have to wake up early to go to the terminal and start my journey.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: You have to come to Guate.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd love to.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let me know when you want to.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's plan something.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: yeah yeah for sure all right man yeah good talking to you thanks for uh hanging out
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: and uh see you soon yeah yeah thank you and uh yeah it's an honor to be to me to be
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: a part of uh of your podcast finally thanks man see you soon see you bye thank you
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you everyone for listening.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead and check out Mercado24, Mercado24, and Dora La Tostadora in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_02: And a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music to the show.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't subscribed to the newsletter, go to newworlder.com and subscribe.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: Check out our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash newworlder.
• 1:09:12
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• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_02: You have no idea how much those little things help.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_02: So please, spread the word.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.